Eager to Learn - Best way to learn

[Lance Peters]

Hi - AS Al and I have mentioned many times - the best way to learn is to jump right in and try your hand at other peoples images - better because you have no emotional attachment to the image--- so here we go....

Here is a image from the weekend - SOC (Straight out of camera - no nothing - no sharpening)

1. What are the issues - Things that could be better with this image
2. Try your hand at PP fixing/changing whatever you think needs to be done.

Heres the techs
Nikon D3S
Sigmonster @ 800mm
F9
1/4000
800 ISO
-0.3EV
Matrix metering
AFC - Focus acquired through AF-ON button
Tripod

So dont be shy - jump in "Whats wrong" and have a go at working on it.

[Mark Young]

Excellent idea for a thread!

The obvious thing for me were the 2 oof gulls. They are at a very distracting location and need to be cloned out.
Also I cropped some from the botton, the right and added some canvas above the bird. I also used the Spot Healing brush to remove the slight brown tinge at the top of the original image before adding the canvas.

Personally I don't overly like when the wings are positioned like this. I like to see some feather pattern and detail, but here the near wing isn't in a good position and it's obscuring the far wing which is. Both wings pointing straight up is a preference, or as horizontal as possible.

I didnt touch any levels, curves, SH, contrast or Sat. I think the bird is exposed very well and any adjustment would be very minor at at best.
NR was applied on the bg, and some USM applied to the bird, escept the underwing position which is showing some noise.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Lance,

Greetings. Interesting thread idea...

Issues: Background gulls, overlapped wing position, slightly behind perspective, glow around wing.



Various and sundry cloning, curves (detail flattening), copy merge, blur merge, masking... (this type of work is not my strong suit)

Detail work: screen blending mode (part of background work, too), curves, sharpening

Color work: some color curve work (warmed tone a bit)

Cropped: a little off the top & bottom.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Lance Peters]

Excellent idea for a thread!

The obvious thing for me were the 2 oof gulls. They are at a very distracting location and need to be cloned out.
Also I cropped some from the botton, the right and added some canvas above the bird. I also used the Spot Healing brush to remove the slight brown tinge at the top of the original image before adding the canvas.

Personally I don't overly like when the wings are positioned like this. I like to see some feather pattern and detail, but here the near wing isn't in a good position and it's obscuring the far wing which is. Both wings pointing straight up is a preference, or as horizontal as possible.

I didnt touch any levels, curves, SH, contrast or Sat. I think the bird is exposed very well and any adjustment would be very minor at at best.
NR was applied on the bg, and some USM applied to the bird, escept the underwing position which is showing some noise.

Hi Mark - agree with your points in regards to the wing position - always best fully up or fully down.
Nice job on removing the OOF gulls :)

[Mark Young]

Thanks Lance, this is a great bit of fun and a good way to compare and learn PS techniques.
Though I think Michael's bg work is better than mine. It looks just a tad smoother and you can see a white spot under the claw that I missed! :eek:

The original image has a halo around the bird, most notably around the wing which is replicated in mine and Michaels images. Is there an easy way to fix this? I know how do it by recreating the bg, or by using the clone tool, but I was hoping there was a simpler and quicker way to remove it.

[Dave Mills]

Mark and Michael, Good job on removal of backround distractions. However I do like the space in the back of the bird from Lance's original...good exercise!!

[Lance Peters]

Thanks Lance, this is a great bit of fun and a good way to compare and learn PS techniques.
Though I think Michael's bg work is better than mine. It looks just a tad smoother and you can see a white spot under the claw that I missed! :eek:

The original image has a halo around the bird, most notably around the wing which is replicated in mine and Michaels images. Is there an easy way to fix this? I know how do it by recreating the bg, or by using the clone tool, but I was hoping there was a simpler and quicker way to remove it.

Hi Mark- interesting will go back to the original RAW and have a look - as this is SOC and no sharpening as per my memory - dont see were a HALO as appeared from??? Unless I have posted the wrong image - dont think so though.

As for removing - duplicate the layer - change the mode to darken - and clone away the halo - should not change the lighter layer underneath.

[Mark Young]

Thanks Lance, I'll give that a go next time.

The halo is apparent around the edge of the left wing, around the trailing edge. It looks like the sort of effect that happens when the shadows and highlights have been adjusted. It's only minute, and seen more peripherally than when looking straight at it. It maybe that my eyes are playing tricks on me. :)

[Lance Peters]

Thanks Lance, I'll give that a go next time.

The halo is apparent around the edge of the left wing, around the trailing edge. It looks like the sort of effect that happens when the shadows and highlights have been adjusted. It's only minute, and seen more peripherally than when looking straight at it. It maybe that my eyes are playing tricks on me. :)

Hi Mark - will check out the RAW - but from memory - I didn't change anything as wanted to post for this thread.

[Tom Graham]

I sure am having trouble seeing any halos on original.
Took it into PS and looked at it 300% and see only a tiny bit. Perhaps jpg artifact?
Here is piece of it, you gonna blow that jpg up this big and complain about maybe, just maybe, one pixel of slightly white? Tough crowd :)
.

.
Tom

[Lance Peters]

I sure am having trouble seeing any halos on original.
Took it into PS and looked at it 300% and see only a tiny bit. Perhaps jpg artifact?
Here is piece of it, you gonna blow that jpg up this big and complain about maybe, just maybe, one pixel of slightly white? Tough crowd :)
.

.
Tom

I am wondering if it is not cloud in the BG - will check the raw tonight once I get home - out earning a living :)

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

I sure am having trouble seeing any halos on original.
Took it into PS and looked at it 300% and see only a tiny bit. Perhaps jpg artifact?
Here is piece of it, you gonna blow that jpg up this big and complain about maybe, just maybe, one pixel of slightly white? Tough crowd :)

Tom,

Greetings. I don't think the photo element that is being discussed (at least what I'm seeing) is a sharpening halo. It is a soft, well, glow around the back wing maybe 10 pixels wide. It is more easily seen at 50% and very hard to see at >100%. It might be just some background reflection off the water. It might not be noticed unless you're picking it apart in PS for an exercise ;).

Mark,

Nice work on the background. I like the texture you retained (that I obliterated with a gaussian blur to cover up cloning artifacts, very hard for me to match subtle color shifts like in this background).

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Tom Graham]

Thanks Michael - I now see what you say. I misunderstood the original "halo" comment, thinking it referred to sharpening. And Lance mentions sharpening also. There are large areas throughout the image of varying blue intensity. For this reason the "halo" does not bother me. Sorry all, never mind.

Tom

[Mark Young]

Thanks Tom. How did you apply the Gaussian blur? I've tried using it maybe once or twice with very poor results.

I'm not too sure what's going on with the halo I saw yesterday, but I can't really seem to see it this morning. Whereas yesterday when I was looking at it on my work Mac, it was very apparent. It must be a monitor thing. Sorry for the hassle Lance. :o

[Lance Peters]

Thanks Tom. How did you apply the Gaussian blur? I've tried using it maybe once or twice with very poor results.

I'm not too sure what's going on with the halo I saw yesterday, but I can't really seem to see it this morning. Whereas yesterday when I was looking at it on my work Mac, it was very apparent. It must be a monitor thing. Sorry for the hassle Lance. :o

No Worries Mark - Gotta keep us honest!!!
Think it must be a refelection of a cloud in the water in the BG - definitely not anything to do with sharpening file was converted to JPG and thats all.

[Lance Peters]

Congrats Michael and Mark for playing the game - really is no better way to learn - pity ithers did not get involved as well.
To sum up - for me the issues here were

Wing position - fully up or fully down is best shows off the detail better
Position - just a tad late - the bird has just about flown past me - best to be flying towards you rather than away.
OOF gulls - nothing i could do here except remove in P.S.
HA - would have liked it angled towards me just a tad - angled away ever so slightly - because the bird is flying away from me at a slight angle.

Nice job on the P.S. work guys - much easier to work on someone else image.

[Mark Young]

Thanks Lance for posting this thread, it's always fun to try something different like this. I'm looking forward to the next one. ;)

[Tom Graham]

Mark - re Gaussian blur. I did not apply any blur. I enlarged original jpg in PS then took (that) screen shot of a piece of it. So that it shows the jpg pixels. Because I was (mistakenly) looking for the tell tale sharpening halo. If I wanted to remove the glowing halo around the wing, I would first try the PS clone tool at a weak value, maybe 10%, 0 hardness, and set for mode darken. And of course you do this on a duplicate layer so if you don't like it you delete and start over from original.

Thanks Lance for your final suggestions. And thank God for cameras doing 6-10 fps !

Tom

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

How did you apply the Gaussian blur? I've tried using it maybe once or twice with very poor results.

On my take I used Gaussian blur on a duplicate layer at a radius of about 30 pixels (really wanted to obliterate detail), added layer mask filled black, painted mask to add blur as appropriate.

Lance, Thanks for the thread and the discussion...

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Mark Young]

Sorry Tom, I meant Micheal but typed your name in by mistake.

Thanks Michael, I'll give that a try next time.